The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) has long been
important in many aspects. From the ancient times it played a significant role
in navigation and trade in Europe. In the Middle Ages the BSR was synonymous with the Hanseatic
League. Nowadays, in the beginning of the 3rd millennium, the region
has not lost its political and economic significance in the world and in Europe
particularly. The BSR is the first region in the world that has adopted common
regional goals for sustainable development. It is estimated that there will be
a considerable increase in the number of regional geographic information
strategies being implemented through the world in the next ten years. It will
naturally raise interest in synthetic geographic information on the BSR, as on
one of the most developed regions in the world.

Atlas of the Baltic Sea Region (ABSR) has
been planned as a complex and consistent cartographic edition, containing over
400 maps, charts, texts, illustrations and other materials with a purpose to
represent the region as a whole in the best way possible. Nature, infrastructure,
demographic, socio-cultural, political and economic situation of the region
will be comprehensively represented in the Atlas. Each of seven major themes
will be unfolded in several aspects:

General representation within a larger context (EU, Europe,
Eurasia, World).

The goal of the project is representing
different aspects of the BSR as of an entity in the form of geographic atlas
featuring the most important aspects of the region. It corresponds to the
following short-term objectives:

Creation and maintenance of a permanent information system and
digital database of the BSR.

Creation and making available to public a collection of maps,
compiled from the database.

In pursuit of these objectives, the
following general tasks must be performed:

Choice of the best international co-operation scenario for the
ABSR project.

Design, development and maintenance of information system and
business model of the atlas.